Hopefully, fishin’ in 2019 will be as good as it was in 2018

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Hello Folks,

I hope you and your family had a Happy New Year and you are lookin’ forward to a great 2019. I hope the fishin’ will be as good this year as it was last year. Please take some time this year and take the family fishin’. You will have a great time with the family catchin’ lots of fish.

If you haven’t heard, the specks are bitin’ and most folks are catchin’ their limit. They are only keepin’ the good ones for the fryin’ pan. Kyle at Bitters Bait and Tackle reports the specks have been bitin’ real good in Lake Monroe and in Lake Jesup. Most folks are catchin’ their specks on minners fished naked. That means that they aren’t usin’ jigs tipped with a minner.

Kyle also reports that the specks are bitin’ in the St. Johns River. Lots of anglers are havin’ good luck in the main river fishin’ along the shoreline cover. Look for pad fields, laydowns, and deep bends in the river and you should be able to locate some nice specks in the river. If you want to stay close to home and you have a favorite lake to fish, you should be able to catch some specks in those lakes as well. If you don’t have a lot of cover in those lakes, drift open water and try and find some submerged hydrilla or eel-grass patches. The specks and a few bass will be hangin’ around those areas as well.

Kyle also reports that the guides are catchin’ some nice bass on wild shiners. The bass will be movin’ to the shoreline to spawn, but the conditions will have to right. We don’t have a full moon until January 21. That said, you should be able to find some bass feedin’ on bait-fish before they go on the beds. Look for bass to be feedin’ on bait-fish throughout the lake. Always look for the birds to be divin’ on the baitfish. That’s always a good sign that bass are feedin’ in that area of the lake.

The bass fishin’ on the Harris Chain has been good as of late. I talked to my buddy Josh Davis and he reported that he and his partner, John Brazzell, fished a tournament on New Year’s Day on the chain. There were 67 boats in the tournament, so that’s a good turnout for the first tournament of the year. The winnin’ stringer was five bass that weighed 24 lbs. total. Josh and his partner didn’t make it to the weigh-in. He gave me permission to tell their story. They were fishin’ in Lake Eustis and when they went to start the big motor, their batteries were dead. They fished in the same area all day and didn’t start the big motor. With all their electronics and trollin’ motor bein’ used, they had killed their batteries. The moral of the story is to start the big motor once in a while when you are fishin’. This will help to keep the startin’ battery charged so you can make it to the weigh-in in time.

Well, that’s it for this week. Let’s start the new year off right and let’s go fishin’.

See ya next week. 

Tip of the week: Keep your batteries charged while fishin’.

Save a few and good luck!